20 Strong: Hoplomachus Victorum

20 Strong: Hoplomachus Victorum Rulebook

Table of Contents

This deck contains the rulebook you're reading, a deck box, 9 hero/primus cards, 9 scion cards, 4 tactic cards, and 54 conflict cards. The conflict cards comprise 22 bloodshed cards, 22 sport cards, and 10 opportunity cards. You will also need the 20 dice, chip, and chip holder from base 20 Strong.

Game Layout

The game layout diagram shows the following areas: the Scion Influence deck, the Scion card, the Exhausted Area, the Discard pile, the Training Grounds, the Stat Dice, the Hero card, the Tactic Area, the Primuses, the Mount Vesuvius Camps (numbered 1 to 7, with the scion camp at the top), the Chip, the Dice Pool, the Active Area (dice and enemies), and the Inventory.

Scion Card

The scion card has a name, additional enemies, a setup and effect, a health value, a damage value, and a spectate penalty. The scion card is shown on both sides: the spectate side (used during play) and the conflict side (used in the endgame).

Winning and Losing

To win Victorum, you must defeat the scion in a final battle. To join this endgame conflict, you must first traverse Mount Vesuvius and eliminate the primuses.

As in all games of 20 Strong, if your Health is ever reduced below 1, you lose.

Setup

Choose a Scion. Choose one of the nine scions as this game's ultimate boss. You may read both sides of the card at any time.
Prepare Mount Vesuvius. Shuffle the conflict deck (consisting of bloodshed, sport, and opportunity cards). Divide it into nine face-up stacks of six cards each, arranged as shown. Stacks are called camps in this deck. Place the scion at the top as a 10th camp with its spectate side face up. Together, the camps make up Mount Vesuvius.
Choose a Hero and Starting Tactic. Deal yourself four random hero/primus cards. Choose one as your hero. The remaining three will be the primuses. Choose one of the four tactics to start with. Place the other three in the tactic area.
Place the Primuses. The three primuses are placed at the camps labeled 1, 2, and 3 in the diagram above. Camps 4-7 only receive primuses if playing on a higher difficulty. You choose which primus goes where, placing the primus card under all other cards in its camp with its image visible. You may look at the primus text at any time.
Create Your Dice Pool. You do not have all 17 unit dice at your disposal at the start of the game. Set one red die, two purple dice, two blue dice, two green dice, and two yellow dice in the dice pool. Place the remaining eight unit dice in the Training Grounds.

Round Adjustments

Rounds in Victorum follow the common rules of 20 Strong with the following adjustments.

Activation

Use the chip to mark your current location. At the start of the game's first Activation, place the chip on one of the four camps at the bottom of Mount Vesuvius.

At the start of subsequent Activations, you must move from your current camp to any adjacent camp. You can ascend, descend, or move sideways. However...

You cannot move to the scion camp,
You cannot move to a camp that has no cards remaining in it, and
You cannot remain in place.

Upon selecting a destination camp, choose to either Spectate or activate the top card by putting it in the active area. Leave the chip on the camp (or on the table in that area if you just removed the camp's last card). If the camp contains a primus, you may activate the primus instead of the top card.

Flow of a Round

Activation

Move to an adjacent camp
Spectate or activate the top card (or primus)

Engagement (skip if opportunity/spectated)

Strategy Phase (repeat = strategy stat)

Commit Dice
Roll Dice
Apply Dice

Resolve Phase

Suffer Damage
After Effects
Exhaust Dice
Recover Dice
Gain Item Rewards
Cleanup
- Dismiss a die for each damaging Bloodshed (see Bloodshed Penalty)
- Add defeated Scion Influence cards to the Scion Influence deck
- Discard all other active cards

Difficulty Ranking

You may make Victorum harder by using this optional difficulty ranking system.

The ranking system starts at Rank 1, which plays as the normal rules describe. Each time you win a game, move to the next ranking. Each time you lose a game, move back to the previous ranking.

For each rank beyond Rank 1, deal yourself one additional hero/primus card during setup. This increases the number of primuses that must be defeated. The setup diagram shows where to place the additional primuses.

For each rank beyond Rank 1, after creating Mount Vesuvius in setup, remove the top card from a number of decks equal to your rank. Place each removed card with Scion Influence into the Scion Influence deck. For each card without Scion Influence, discard it and dismiss a unit.

Rank	Primuses	Cards Removed
1: Chosen	3	0
2: Blessed	4	2
3: Valiant	5	3
4: Fearless	6	4
5: Bloodthirsty	7	5

Hero/Primus Card

Hero Side

Name
Starting Health (heart icon)
Starting Strategy (blue square icon)
Starting Recovery (green arrow icon)
Ability

Primus Side

Name
Effect
Bane
Damage
Health

Conflict Cards

Bloodshed Enemy

Name
Additional Enemies
Scion Influence (fire icons)
Effect
Reward
Health
Damage
Dismiss Penalty

Opportunity

Name
Condition
Reward

Sport Enemy

Name
Effect
Reward
Health
Damage

Tactic Card

Name
Reward

Spectating

If you wish to avoid a bloodshed, sport, or opportunity card (or just really need a boost), you may choose to spectate it instead. When you spectate, carry out the following steps:

Suffer the spectate penalty found on the scion's card.
Discard the top card from your camp, skipping Engagement entirely.
Either recover one die or +1 Health.

Opportunity

If the activated card is an opportunity, skip Engagement entirely and either place the opportunity in your inventory or discard it.

Opportunity cards provide rewards that you acquire by fulfilling their conditions. Until the conditions have been fulfilled, the opportunity cannot be used for its reward.

Opportunity cards, whether complete or incomplete, are items and are kept in your inventory. They count against the number of cards you may have in your inventory, as determined by your Strategy stat. Opportunities may be discarded at any time, just like other items.

When you satisfy the conditions on an incomplete opportunity card in your inventory, immediately flip it over so only its reward text is showing, and gain its reward. Incomplete opportunities can be distinguished from complete ones by which side is face up.

Bloodshed or Sport

If you activate a bloodshed or sport card, carry out Engagement normally.

Bloodshed Penalty. For each bloodshed enemy that deals you damage in the Suffer Damage step, you must dismiss a die in the Cleanup step. The Dismiss Penalty icon on these cards is a reminder of this.

Sport Benefit. All sport cards offer the same alternate rewards. When you would gain the card's reward (on defeat if [defeat icon], during the Gain Item Rewards step if [item icon] or [infinity icon]) you may trade the card's reward for the alternate reward of either recruiting a die or gaining a tactic. A reminder of this choice is printed on the card as such: [recruit icon] / [tactic icon].

Primus

Primuses are bosses. If you activate a primus card, carry out the conflict using endgame rules with the following adjustments:

Resolve the Effect on the primus and any other conflict cards as normal.
All enemies must be defeated.
During the Exhaust Dice step, do not exhaust dice applied to undefeated enemies. These dice carry over between rounds.
At the end of the Cleanup step in the round in which you complete the primus conflict (by defeating all enemies), resolve the primus's bane.

Adding Enemies

When a card activates additional enemies, select and activate that number of bloodshed and/or sport cards from the tops of camps adjacent to your current camp.

If an additional enemy you activate also calls for additional enemies, those second-order enemies are activated from camps adjacent to the camp the first additional enemy came from.

Continue activating additional enemies until no more must be activated. If you are called to activate additional enemies and there are no bloodshed or sport cards showing on adjacent camps, skip adding those additional enemies.

Tactic Cards

Tactics are single-use item cards. When you use a tactic, return it to the tactic area. When you gain a tactic, freely choose one from the tactic area.

Recruiting and Dismissing Dice

To recruit a die, move a die from the training grounds to your dice pool. Unless otherwise instructed, you must recruit the weakest die possible.

To dismiss a die, choose a die and move it to the training grounds. Unless told otherwise, you may choose any die from any area except those banished or applied to cards.

Strengthening and Weakening Dice

To strengthen a die, dismiss a die and then immediately recruit a die of the next highest available strength. To weaken a die, dismiss a die and then immediately recruit a die of the next lowest available strength. When strengthening or weakening, the newly-recruited die must be placed in the same area that the initial die was dismissed from.

A die is ineligible to strengthen if there are no stronger dice in the training grounds, and it is ineligible to weaken if no weaker dice are available.

Banes

Banes are negative effects you must suffer when you defeat a primus.

At the end of the round in which you successfully complete a primus conflict, follow the bane instructions on the primus card.

If you defeat and discard the primus before defeating the remaining enemies, make sure to keep the primus nearby to consult the bane once the conflict is finished.

Scion Influence

Scion Influence, represented by fire icons, builds over the course of the game and impacts the scion conflict.

During the Cleanup step, all defeated cards showing Scion Influence are added face-down to the top of the Scion Influence deck rather than being discarded. The first time you defeat such a card, it establishes that deck. It is helpful to offset the cards in this deck such that the Scion Influence icon on all of the cards is visible.

Some enemies grant Scion Influence as well as an item. The Scion Influence is not granted so long as the item remains in your inventory. When you would discard an item with Scion Influence, it is placed on the Scion Influence deck instead.

Undefeated enemies and cards discarded in other ways are not added to the Scion Influence deck.

The current Scion Influence is calculated by counting all of the Scion Influence icons in the deck. Scion Influence therefore increases as cards are added to this deck and decreases as cards are removed. You may look through this deck at any time, but do not change the order of the cards when doing so.

Endgame

The round after you have completed the final primus conflict, you must face the scion in the endgame. Complete Activation as follows:

Reach the Summit. Move directly to the scion camp. Discard the cards remaining in all other camps.
Prepare the Battlefield. Flip the scion to its conflict side, activate it, and follow any other setup instructions on the scion card.
Activate the Scion's Allies. Activate enemies as directed on the scion card. When adding these enemies to the active area, rather than choosing cards from adjacent camps, reveal and activate cards from the top of the Scion Influence deck. If that deck is insufficient, draw additional enemies at random from the discard (skipping any opportunities drawn). In either case, ignore the [additional enemies] icon on additional enemies.

Once the endgame begins, defeated enemies are not added to the Scion Influence deck and are instead discarded normally.

The scion conflict proceeds according to endgame rules with the following adjustments:

All enemies must be defeated.
During the Exhaust Dice step, do not exhaust dice applied to undefeated enemies. These dice carry over between rounds.

If you defeat the scion and all additional enemies in the conflict, you win!

Universal Heroes

When playing Victorum with a universal hero, select your hero/primuses in setup as normal using Victorum-specific cards. Then, substitute the hero you selected for a universal hero. Return the replaced hero to the box.